


Where your freedom lies

by rosa_himmelblau



Series: The Roadhouse Blues [29]
Category: Wiseguy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:07:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26090860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosa_himmelblau/pseuds/rosa_himmelblau
Summary: One of the searchers has success.
Series: The Roadhouse Blues [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1069713





	Where your freedom lies

One of the things in life Roger was sure of was, it was always a good idea to know what you were walking into before you walked into it. That philosophy meant surveillance was essential, and that meant patience. Roger didn't possess any real patience, but he did know how to fake it when he had to.

It felt like he'd been looking for Vince forever, and catching that first sight of him, Roger felt the way Ponce De Leon must have when he stumbled over Florida and thought he'd found the fountain of youth, whatever the hell that meant. What was it about Vinnie Terranova that had that effect on people? There was some comfort in knowing he wasn't the only one whose brain went soft where he was concerned, but not much. McPike was the classic example, but there was also Steelgrave (and why the hell wasn't he dead? Roger really wanted an answer to that one), who seemed to have thrown the whole Sicilian Macho Rule Book right out the window over Vince.

And then there was the good Don Aiuppo.

Roger had seen him a year earlier, in the house in Brooklyn, of all places. He'd pretended to be a prospective buyer, for the benefit of the lady realtor Aiuppo had had with him—a pushy one who'd let himself in. But once they were alone, Aiuppo had zeroed in.

He'd recognized Roger immediately, even after all this time, and he'd quite reasonably wanted to know what Roger was doing sneaking around in his son's house.

Roger didn't laugh, though it still tickled him that the upright Mrs. Terranova had married the big deal Mafia don. He was glad to run into Aiuppo so serendipitously, though; it saved him from having to hunt the man down.

"Sit down, Mr. Lococco." It was halfway between an order and an invitation, and Roger sat. "I'm surprised to find you here. In fact, I'm surprised to find you anywhere at all. Were reports of your death greatly exaggerated?" He was working at humor, benevolence, but it was coming out strained. The man was thoroughly pissed off about something, and it wasn't Roger breaking into Vinnie's house.

"You know how it is. Sometimes it's more convenient to be dead than alive."

"And Vincenzo knows?"

 _Knows._ Roger would have bet that was a slip. "We've always been close. That's why he gave me a key to his house. But, since you're selling the place, I ought to give that back." He slipped it off his keyring and offered it back, and after a moment, Aiuppo took it. They both knew the key was irrelevant, but its return was a kind of ceremony, a promise.

"Where is he?" Roger asked quietly.

Aiuppo feigned surprise. "Where is who?"

"Vincenzo. C'm'on, I know your guys got him home; I spent months getting to the middle of the fucking maze, only to fine a Sorry! We're closed! sign. So, you can see why I might have something of a vested interested in where he is, how he is."

Aiuppo shook his head. "The only word I've had is that my son is dead."

"Bullshit! Vince's as dead as I am!" Roger pulled himself back from the violent punctuation he dearly wanted to include. "Now, look. I know your guys got him out, and I know you haven't shared with McPike. I don't know why you haven't, that's not my concern. My concern is Vince, and I've put in enough hours and risked my skin enough that I deserve—"

Aiuppo stood up suddenly. The expression on his face was—Roger couldn't describe it. Anger, bewilderment, exasperation, as if he'd heard all this before. "You deserve? If you're here to take him, you're too late." He started to leave, and Roger followed, until Pooch got in his way.

"Don't make me hurt you," Roger said in a kind, low voice, which didn't move Pooch at all. _Of course, he only takes orders from his don._ Roger raised his voice, spoke around Pooch. "If this is all the muscle you brought, you're going to want to call for an ambulance right now. I don't usually go around hammering old men, but you're putting me in a mood to."

"Pooch. It's all right. Go wait in the car." Roger suppressed a laugh at that. "Mr. Lococco, if you're here for Vincenzo, you're too late. He's gone."

He was telling the truth, and for one horrible second, Roger thought he was being euphemistic. Then he realized the old man meant it literally, Vinnie had been there, but he'd left. "Gone where?"

"That has yet to be determined."

Now Roger was baffled. It wasn't a feeling he was used to, and it brought back the anger. "How did he leave?"

Aiuppo looked at him for a long moment, as if trying to determine something. "What guarantee do I have that your motives for searching for Vincenzo are aboveboard?"

That seemed like, if not an odd question, an oddly phrased one. "You could check with McPike. Or, you could if you were willing to let him know what's going on. One thing I can tell you; me going around asking questions is not a good way for Vinnie's whereabouts to remain a secret."

Aiuppo shook his head. "I don't know where he is."

"Yeah, I'm sure that's literally true. But you know how to find out, and there's a reason for you not to. There isn't any reason for me not to." Briefly, he hoped he wasn't making a bargain with the devil for Vinnie's soul.

"If I told you, and when you found him, if anything was wrong, would you . . . intervene?"

That was a condition Roger had no trouble with. He smiled at Aiuppo. "With pleasure."

That was how Roger had discovered that Sonny Steelgrave was still alive.

Aiuppo had provided no details, and Roger hadn't pushed only because he was convinced Aiuppo had no details. He didn't seem interested enough in the subject to want to know more.

What Aiuppo did know was that he had brought Steelgrave there for the purpose of snapping Vince back to reality, and after being there two days, Steelgrave had disappeared in the middle of the night—with Vince. That was just over eighteen months ago. Since then, he had spoken to him on the phone half a dozen times. Steelgrave's paranoia meter was jacked up to overload, and his message was always the same: he had Vince, he didn't have to return him, and there wasn't anything Aiuppo could do about it. Aiuppo had not spoken to Vince, had been told only that Vince had nothing to say to him at the moment.

"What about the niece?" Roger asked. They'd moved to the kitchen, where Aiuppo had poured them each a shot of the ozou he carried with him.

"No."

"Have you even talked to her?"

"I gave my word I wouldn't contact her again."

The man played by the rules. That was good. Roger thought about it all. The question—was Vinnie AWOL of his own accord?—hinged on his state when he left. There was no way Steelgrave could have removed him by force without waking the whole house. So, "How drugged up was he?"

"He hadn't had his pills at dinner," Aiuppo admitted.

"You think he left of his own accord?" If he hadn't, if Steelgrave had abducted him, was keeping him prisoner, how did he do it, and what kind of restraint was he using?

"I don't know." Aiuppo looked suddenly much older. Defeated. Facing reality could do that to a man, Roger knew.

"Do you know where the calls came from?"

"The first was a pay phone upstate. It was a courtesy call, he said, to let me know Vincenzo was healthy and happy. All the rest of the calls came from pay phones in Chicago. I've had men all over Chicago since that second call, but there's no trace of either of them."

"Chicago. It's a start," Roger said, though privately he suspected it was more of a red herring. If Vince was with Steelgrave willingly, Roger couldn't discount his input in all this. The combination of the brain Vince usually kept hidden behind that dumb mobster routine, and Steelgrave's experience at living life on the sly was a formidable one. Finding them could present a real challenge.

Roger told Aiuppo he wanted to spend some time in Vince's room. Let him think he wanted to soak in the vibes, commune with Vince's aura, or maybe think back on old times. Whatever the old man thought, he didn't argue about it, and Roger was left alone to systematically search the house.

The first thing he did was check for the money he knew Vinnie had stashed in the back of the linen closet, and he found it. "So you eloped in such a hurry, you left your parachute behind. What was the big rush?" Roger threw the gym bag on the bed to take with him, and kept searching

It was nearly dawn when he finished. It didn't take that long to do a thorough search; it took that long to make it look as though no one had been searching. Frank had told him he'd sold Vince's car, at Aiuppo's request. He hadn't been OK with it, no surprise there. But Roger was pretty damn sure Frank hadn't hidden the paperwork behind a picture in Vince's room, and he was pretty damn sure Aiuppo hadn't done it, either. Vince had put the papers there because he knew what they meant. His family wasn't expecting him back.

Roger's mind barely acknowledged that the conclusion he had reached was, in fact, an intuitive leap, that while the papers he'd found had given him an idea, they in no way proved anything. But Roger knew he was right.

Once he'd finished his search of the house, Roger sacked out for a few hours in Vince's bed. He left the Brooklyn house with a great feeling of satisfaction, had a late breakfast, then drove to the Bronx, to have a word with the former owner of Vince's car.

The kid confirmed Roger's hunch. Even after a year and a half, he clearly remembered a guy fitting Steelgrave's description coming around, wanting to purchase his recently acquired Charger. The guy had offered him "a shitload of cash, plus extra for the plates." After they'd agreed on a price, the guy had had him drive him to the bank. He'd waited while the guy went inside, and when the guy came out a few minutes later, he'd paid the kid in hundred dollar bills. "I kinda wondered if he'd maybe robbed the bank," the kid admitted. Belatedly he worried that Roger might be a cop, but Roger reassured him with a few twenties and got to see the car's paperwork, which included the one piece of information no one else had: Sonny Steelgrave's new name. _Now **that** is a start._

Having Steelgrave's new name wasn't necessarily going to make finding them easy. What it really afforded, and what Roger prized, was the psychological advantage it gave him. Steelgrave had been hiding in plain sight, secure because no one knew his name. It made Roger think of the superstition of not allowing an enemy to know one's true name, for fear of leaving one's self vulnerable to spells and incantations. In Steelgrave's case, it was no superstition.

Knowing they had Vince's car told him that this had been a road trip. Steelgrave hadn't bought that Charger just to abandon it, and Vince loved that blue piece of shit. They were a threesome now, and if there was a split, the car would go with Vince.

They'd called from Chicago, for the obvious reason of its size. A man could waste a lot of time searching there. But Aiuppo had a lot of men and none of them had found anything. Something was up. Roger wasn't going to waste his time going over the same ground Aiuppo's guys had covered. There had to be another way in.

Tracy Steelgrave was the one person who might know where they were, but Roger had no intention of contacting her. There were a lot of good reasons not to, but the best was that she was a woman. Those lovely creatures might be soft on the outside, but when they were protecting their own, they could be colder and deadlier than anything else on the planet. If she didn't want to talk to him—and why would she?—she wasn't going to. Oh, sure, Roger could probably break her, given enough time and the right tools. But the repercussions of doing that were not ones he wanted any part of. He didn't want to go to war with Steelgrave, though that wasn't really very important to him. He certainly didn't want to go to war with Vince.

Besides, all contacting Ms Steelgrave would really do was alert her uncle that there was a new player in the hide and seek game. It was a possibility he could send a message through her to Vinnie, but without knowing the situation, Roger had no idea what would happen if he tried that, and he was too smart to bet everything on a blind hand.

Watching her was a different matter. Of course both she and her uncle knew how easy it would be for Aiuppo to have her watched—for all Roger knew, Aiuppo **was** having her watched. Until this was all settled, they would make sure that if she was, there would be nothing overt for anyone to see. But that didn't mean there would be nothing at all to see.

But if there was, Roger was missing it. He spent a week in Malibu and did some digging. He found that Steelgrave had not returned to his apartment, and that it was no longer in his name, that someone else was living there. No doubt Tracy had handled that, storing or selling his furniture, turning off the utilities. There wouldn't have been any pets to deal with; Steelgrave didn't seem like the pet type, unless you wanted to count Vinnie. So whether or not he'd be coming back to town, he probably wouldn't be coming back to his old apartment.

Roger was talking to Aiuppo on a near-daily basis. There was some entertainment value to listening to the old man try to keep his anger at Steelgrave in check—and the way he tiptoed around Vinnie's relationship with Steelgrave was a real hoot. It was clear the old man had had no idea of his stepson's proclivities, and even less idea what to think about them. All in all though, it was a ritual Roger could have easily done without.

He didn't tell Aiuppo about Vince's car, though it amused him no end. He had to give Steelgrave points for—Roger didn't know what, exactly. But he knew that car meant a lot to Vince. So, sentiment maybe? Or maybe just knowing Vince well enough to know how to get through to him.

Roger lay on his bed in the evening, thinking about Vinnie, about Steelgrave, about where they'd go. They weren't in Chicago, phone calls notwithstanding. So where would they go?

That should've been a tough question; once Vince got his fake I.D., they could have gone anywhere, could have gotten on a plane and kissed the good old U. S. of A goodbye forever, reducing Big Daddy Aiuppo's chances of ever finding them to the laughably small. But they hadn't. Vince was emotionally vulnerable. He didn't want to be part of the jet set—he'd never wanted to be part of it anyway—he wanted home. Since his own home was gone, Steelgrave's would have to suffice. And Steelgrave's home was now on the left coast, near his niece. So, it was back to California for Roger. He gave a lot of thought to what they needed. Safety would be an important factor, and that meant the big city, someplace they could blend in. Not L.A. Roger wasn't sure why, but Los Angeles felt wrong to him, in spite of its proximity, or maybe because of it. What did that leave him with?

Too much. He'd need to find a way to narrow it down even more.

There was one sure way, though he didn't much like using it. It was a breech of Vinnie's security, but it looked like it was going to be a necessary one. He'd make the call in the morning.

That night he dreamed for the first time about Susan Profitt. It was nighttime, and the three of them—Suzie, Vinnie and him, were out in a rowboat, someplace just off Coney Island. The rides were ablaze, and Roger could make out the Wonder Wheel, flames shooting from it, up into the black sky. Susan was placidly explaining how Mel's new plan to corner the amusement park market meant destroying all those who refused to sell, but that after they had burned Coney Island to the ground, they were sure the Disneyland people would come around.

Vinnie looked stricken, sick to his stomach, but when a violent wave threatened to capsize their boat and took Susan overboard with it, he grabbed her, trying to pull her back in.

Roger was infuriated. He grabbed the oars and hurled them into the shattering waves, then he went after Susan, shoving her head under the water, even while Vinnie clung to her hands, trying to save her. The last thing Roger saw before he woke up was Vinnie, diving overboard to try to find her.

There was no sleeping after that one, though the nightmare, at least the last part, had been too literally true to pass for dream symbolism. He had been trying to drown Susan at that same time Vince was trying to save her. Vince had never known that, would never know it. Even after all this time, it could be the end of everything if he ever found out.

Roger's call took most of the morning. Russell Walker was the one guy he'd served with to get away clean from the Isle Pavot debacle, and he'd been the first one Roger had called when Vince first went missing. Russell had put him in touch with a guy who could hack a computer system with the best of 'em, and that guy, Nathan Saks, had been invaluable in getting Roger information he needed. Now he was more than happy to—do whatever felonious magic it was that he did.

"This the same lost sheep as the last time?" Saks asked. Roger could hear keys clicking in the background.

"Same sheep, new angle. What can you give me on—" Roger gave him Steelgrave's new name.

"Whatcha want? Bank statement, DMV, credit card activity?"

Roger gave it a moment's thought. DMV would be good, but a photo went along with that, and while Roger trusted Saks enough, enough wasn't good enough when it came to Vince. "Gimme the credit cards."

"You got it." More key-tapping, then, "What is this guy, some kind of bizarro traveling salesman?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he's got a some credit cards, but one of 'em the only thing he uses it for is plane tickets. He flies to Chicago from one city, stays a couple hours, then flies back to the same city he left from, but it's never the same city, if you follow. The only pattern I can find is, he seems to be heading westward."

"Wait. Say that again."

Saks did.

 _ **Flying** back to Chicago. Of course; Aiuppo and I are both idiots. Steelgrave was doing his version of what that guy in _Wait Until Dark _had done with the cane: tap-tap-tap as he moved away from the spot. Tap-tap-tap as he slipped from where he had been to where he wanted to be. There was a game like that, what was it called?_

 _Of course, blind-man's-bluff. Only that guy hadn't been bluffing and neither was Steelgrave. He and Vince are driving everywhere, but when he wants to try a negotiation with Aiuppo, he flies to Chicago, then he flies right back out._ "What's the billing address?" Roger asked, already knowing the answer, and pissed off about it. Saks read him Tracy Steelgrave's address. "OK, what about DMV?"

"Got his driver's license renewed in Malibu in December of ninety-one."

Roger thanked Saks, then he made an unscheduled call to Aiuppo. He didn't tell him that either Vince was helping Steelgrave, or Steelgrave was way smarter than they'd been giving him credit for, and he didn't tell him that his guys in Chicago were seriously wasting their time. That was his problem. Roger did tell him that they weren't going to find Vince if he and Steelgrave didn't settle down and so it was time to make amends. 

Of course the old man didn't want to, but Roger had reason on his side, and Aiuppo was old and tired. "There's a reason Steelgrave keeps calling; you think it's because he's hoping you'll remember him in your will? He wants to settle down, and more importantly, Vince needs to. You said his mental state's precarious; well, I'm sure all this roaming around isn't doing him any good. This traveling around can't last forever, and while it's pretty obvious they don't want to leave the country—"

"All right!" Aiuppo agreed, temper flaring. Roger ignored that.

"And besides all that, I can't do what you want unless they do—"

"All you have to do is find them," Aiuppo interrupted. "Find them and bring Vincenzo home."

"That wasn't the deal," Roger said flatly. "Yeah, I can probably find them—" and he could, all he'd have to do is have Saks monitor Steelgrave's credit card, then be there when he showed up in Chicago, but that would only get him Steelgrave, who had been making these trips alone. He could follow Steelgrave back, probably—he'd be at his most paranoid though, so it would be risky, and if Roger made a mistake, they could disappear for good. "But for me to observe the situation, they have to stay put. So you tell them all is forgiven, you tell them they're safe, you let them settle someplace and build a nest. It's either that or I go after Ms Steelgrave, and Vince never speaks to either of us again."

"If I do this—" Aiuppo began, but Roger was tired, and the whole situation had left a bad taste in his mouth.

"If you do this, I'll be able to find them, and I will. And when I do, I'll be able to scope out the situation. When do you think you'll be hearing from them again?"

"I don't know." The defeat in his voice was a small, sad thing. "There's no regularity to the calls."

"If you can get them settled by Halloween and I don't like what I see, if Vince has been harmed in any way, I'll FedEx you Steelgrave's nuts in time for you to hang them on your Christmas tree."

That led to more waiting. Roger alternated between watching Ms Steelgrave and hanging out at the beach. Once he flew east to talk to Frank, just to see if he knew anything. He didn't, and they were shutting down the OCB. If he'd cared just a little more about Frank, Roger would've been worried, but as it was—Frank McPike was a grown man with a teenage son. If he couldn't come up with his own reasons to go on living, he should call a suicide hotline, or talk to his priest. Roger didn't have any answers for him.

When he got back to Malibu, Roger settled back into his routine and discovered Ms Steelgrave had changed hers. Her weekends were now spent driving to San Francisco, looking at apartments. Roger was pretty sure she wasn't planning a move—at least, not into the apartments she was looking at, since they were well outside what he suspected her price range to be. Steelgrave was getting ready to settle, and when he did, Vince would be with him. Roger stopped trailing Ms Steelgrave and took a plane to Sydney, and from there connected to Ansett to Cairns.

There was something about the crystalline perfection that Roger found soothing; the blues of water and sky were unlike anything that existed in the US, and the white sand made him think of heaven. If Roger had believed in such a place, this is what it would look like. He drank champagne on the trip to Hayman Island, standing with the spray hitting his face and just relaxing as he deliberately **stopped waiting**. Vince would be settled in when he got back, but in the meantime he wasn't going to think about him at all. "Who says money can't buy happiness?" he said to the woman standing next to him. She smiled and raised her glass in agreement. The sun felt gorgeous on his bare skin. There was something about absolute, perfect beauty that somehow seemed both right and fundamentally wrong. There should be something to mar this perfection, either in himself or in his surroundings, but there was nothing. Even if they'd been taking him to the gallows, Roger would have been very happy.

Roger stayed incommunicado for the next three months. It took him that long to feel the slightest irritation with perfection. He wasn't bored yet—though he could feel himself getting there—but he thought he'd give Saks a jingle, check on Steelgrave's credit card activity.

"Your lost sheep's settled down," Saks reported two days after Valentine's Day. "He's only gone to Chicago once since we last talked. His billing address has changed, to a San Francisco address—nice neighborhood, too. And he's started using one of the other credit cards, for dinner out every Monday night. You want the new address, and the restaurant?"

Roger did, and with that he was all set.

After he'd made his plane reservations, Roger called first Aiuppo, then McPike. Both were pissed at his disappearing act. To Aiuppo he gave the straight story—there was nothing he could do until they settled down, so he'd taken a vacation. Frank he'd just told to shove it, he was doing his best and he didn't owe him anything.

Two days later he was back in San Francisco, outside the love nest. Saks was right, it was a very nice neighborhood, though not as nice Steelgrave had been used to in his salad days. Roger drove past a few times, found himself a good place to watch from, though he wasn't ready to start just yet. He didn't want to take the chance of Steelgrave spotting him. It was Saturday; he could wait two days for boys' night out.

Monday, nine p.m. sharp, Roger watched from his rental car as Steelgrave slid his Mercedes convertible into a parking space and got out. He stood next to the car for a few minutes, arms folded impatiently, then he leaned back into the car. Roger couldn't hear what he said, but Vince got out of the car. They started toward the restaurant, Steelgrave talking animatedly, Vince—was he even paying attention? Roger didn't think so, and it looked like Steelgrave didn't either. He stopped Vince, grabbing his arm, and for a second Roger thought he was going to slug him. Instead he just looked into Vince's face and straightened his tie.

Roger didn't follow them inside. Instead he drove down the block and picked up some Chinese food to eat in the car.

Either Steelgrave's favorite restaurant had the slowest service in town, or he and Vince lingered over their dinner; whichever, they didn't come out until quarter after eleven. Vince still looked abstracted, and Steelgrave seemed ticked off, stalking ahead of Vince, slamming the car door. Roger didn't follow them home.

"He drove himself," Roger said. The protocol of who drove was significant, he knew, and the fact that Vince was a passenger told him that their relationship was that of equals—Vinnie wasn't Steelgrave's driver. The fact that Steelgrave was putting up with Vince's crap told him something too, though he wasn't entirely sure what.

After that, Roger learned Steelgrave's schedule. He watched Steelgrave drag Vince to a nearby gym for early morning work-outs, watched them return, watched Steelgrave leave again an hour later. One day a week—usually Wednesday, but once it was Thursday—he went to a barbershop for the works. It was the only day he didn't go straight to the office he'd rented in the business district. Roger had no idea what Steelgrave did there, but he suspected whatever it was, he really had the office to get away from Vince for a while. That's what Roger would've done, anyway.

Five o'clock sharp Steelgrave left his office, and two nights a week he drove home. The other three he went to the Sofitel San Francisco Bay. Roger's first thought was that Steelgrave was meeting someone there, but apparently he just liked the bar. And why not, it was a four-star hotel. He stayed anywhere from half an hour to three hours.

Roger became a regular there himself, watching Steelgrave. He wasn't the kind of guy who made idle chitchat with strangers, and he wasn't the kind to tell his troubles to his friendly neighborhood bartender. He had the occasional conversation with a woman, but otherwise he kept to himself. He came, he drank, he looked out at the bay. He didn't get drunk, cause problems, or loudly proclaim his intention of going home and putting a bullet in the head of the guy he lived with. He didn't even mutter it to himself under his breath.

Once Steelgrave came in with Vince, which hadn't been a good idea. Vinnie had been moody and irritable and they'd gotten into a loud argument that had gotten physical when Steelgrave tried to insist they leave and Vince had refused to go with him. The fact that Steelgrave had only given him a push didn't mean much—after all, they were in a public place. The fact that Vince let himself be pushed meant something else, but Roger wasn't sure he knew what.

Once he had Steelgrave's schedule down, Roger switched over to watching Vince. Talking to Steelgrave was impossible and talking to Vince would be easy—but what would it tell him? According to Aiuppo, Vince's mental state had been precarious when he'd left with Steelgrave. Roger had had enough first-hand experience with crazy people to know that you couldn't always tell right off how crazy they were, nor could you trust them to give you accurate information with regards to their own state, physically or mentally. Roger needed to observe him for a while to see what he could tell with regards to whether or not Vinnie's cuckoo had flown the nest.

After their morning work-out, Vince didn't leave the apartment again until late afternoon, and then only to buy smokes. Sometimes he walked to the nearest drugstore, but more often he drove across town, taking a variety of long, circuitous routes Roger suspected were designed to kill time and alleviate boredom. One thing it didn't seem to be was an attempt at avoiding a tail. Vinnie drove as though he was invisible. And, Roger noted with satisfaction, he was driving the blue Charger.

Roger didn't think Vince was crazy, but there was no question that he was damaged. Some of that damage—and you could argue for hours how much—or some people could. Frank, for example, Frank could and would argue for days about what and how and who and why Vince's trolly had jumped the tracks, but Frank wasn't here, thank God. Some of that damage had been done by Sonny's death. Or, rather, Sonny's "death," which kind of had to make you wonder how reliable anything Vince said was going to be right about now. he was living with the object of a thousand nightmares and a million guilts, and if that wasn't bad enough, he'd once been in love with Steelgrave, or if not in love, at least something very like it. Vince's idea of everything A-OK was not to be trusted. Roger would have loved to have heard Steelgrave's version of what was going on. He fantasized about getting him alone someplace, with one of those imaginary truth serums you saw in the movies. Unfortunately, as Roger knew very well, there wasn't any such thing as a truth serum. What there was was sodium pentathol, which in terms of getting someone to tell the truth, was about the same as plain old alcohol. In fact, it pretty much did the same thing to the brain: it lowered the person's inhibitions and made him want to talk. Roger had the idea that once he got going, Steelgrave would have a lot to say on the topic of Vinnie Terranova. But wanting to talk wasn't the same as wanting to tell the truth, so even if Roger could drug Steelgrave and start asking him questions, there was nothing to guarantee his answers would be true.

Vinnie was here because he wanted to be, there was no question about that. He had his own car, and if he didn't have any money, he could still dial a telephone. Forgoing one pack of smokes would have bought him enough long distance time to leave a message on Roger's machine, and there had been none, had been no calls to Frank, his Lifeguard, his stepfather—unless someone was lying to Roger about not having heard from him, and even if they were, if Vince wanted out, they'd be getting him out.

Roger watched for a week, a month, let boredom grow on him like moss on an unrolled stone. Vince was bored, too. And he was depressed, and not for the first time. Vince would fall into a depression and wallow in it, him and McPike both, until something made him pull out. Roger didn't understand that, but he knew boredom, and he knew it came with the territory of their former jobs, that it was the flip-side of fear. You waited and waited, and what you were waiting for was for something terrible to happen, for enemy fire, for someone to try to kill you, for you to have to kill someone. And the sad, petty thing about it was, that was better than the boredom. No wonder Vince kept provoking Steelgrave.

Roger gave Steelgrave plenty of time to be gone, to have forgotten something and come back for it—though he'd yet to see Steelgrave do that. Then he went up to the apartment and knocked on the door. Knocked, and knocked again, finally calling Vince's name. At last there was a stirring from inside, and Vince opened the door.

There was no reason seeing him should be a shock, but somehow . . . somehow, it was. Talking to Vinnie had a weird effect on him.

For a second Vinnie just stared at him, as if his brain, behind the big, hurt, angry eyes was trying to place him. Then he grabbed him by the jacket sleeve and hauled him inside the apartment. "Get in here." And when the door was closed, "Great time you pick to start using my real name, Rog."

 _Aiuppo was right, you've got yourself a new identity._ "Nice to see you, too," Roger answered, and Vinnie grinned at him. It wasn't that he was so thrilled to see him; it was that him showing up counted as "something happening."

"So, Spanky, what's up?" The bright words were forced, and Roger wasn't sure how to answer his question, except with one of his own: Are you all right? And he wasn't ready to ask that yet.

So he left the oversized briefcase at the front door and walked slowly around the expansive living room. The place looked plenty big enough for two, and Roger would have bet Steelgrave paid twice what the square-footage would have gone for in a place that didn't have a view of the bay.

Vince sat down on the sofa, and Roger could feel him watching as he walked around. "Nice place you got here," Roger said at last.

"Yeah, we like it." The words came out droll, a little impatient. "C'm'on, Rog, you didn't come all this way to check to make sure I had a good view. Who sent you? And how'd you know where to look?"

"Nobody sent me." Roger took a seat on the opposite end of the sofa and gave in to the need to really look at Vince, not sure what he was seeing. He'd regained the weight Aiuppo said he'd lost, and then some, but he hadn't hit fat-and-depressed yet. There were some fading bruises at one cheekbone, most likely souvenirs of sparring with Steelgrave in the wee hours of the morning. Mostly he seemed a little . . . vague. Roger had never seen that before. Vinnie played dumb hood very well, but even under that act, his sharpness showed through. "I've been looking for you since you disappeared."

Vince shrugged. "And now you found me. Now what?"

Roger had a moment of frightening conviction that if he told Vince—whatever he told Vince—that would be what he'd do. When was the last time he'd made his own decisions, and was that cause, or effect, of co-habiting with Steelgrave?

Roger didn't know what to do; his altruistic impulses scared him, with their unknown repercussions looming large, so he gave in to the selfish urge to satisfy his curiosity. "I thought you told me Steelgrave was dead."

Vinnie laughed. "Yeah, that's what everyone thinks."

"So what's the real story?"

Vince stood up abruptly, walked around behind the sofa, out of Roger's line of sight. "The real story? The real story is, if Frank and I say you're dead, get a second opinion, we're not doctors. The real story is, I remember more about what happened than he does, so now I get these questions, like how big was the funeral, and why did I lock the doors to the theatre—"

There was something off in Vince's voice, a note that was wrong by just half a key. Roger shifted on the sofa to look at him, but Vince had his back to him. He started to say something, but Vince interrupted him.

"How's Frank?" He was searching his pockets for something Roger guessed was a pack of cigarettes.

"Frank's adopted a puppy."

For some reason, that made Vinnie laugh, seemed to pull him back together. He came back to sit on the sofa again. "He get that desk job—"

"Frank's a mess," Roger said. "You know that."

"What do you want me to do about it?" He was angry, which was better than whatever he'd been before. There were no cigarettes on his person. He got up and moved to an end table, opened the drawer.

"That looks like a telephone there," Roger said of the instrument sitting on the end table. "You need his number, information's only a second away—"

"And then what?" Vince demanded, slamming the drawer shut. "You showing up here is one thing, but Frank? You're going to go away, but if I call Frank, I might as well pack my bags, because he won't leave without me. We both know that. A phone call wouldn't be enough. Seeing me in person might be enough, if it wasn't Sonny—there's no way I could get around telling him about Sonny, and there's no way in hell he'd accept this—"

"'This' being?"

"Me with Sonny."

"You really think Frank's top priority is whose bed you're in?"

"Are you kidding me? It would never occur to Frank that I'm sleeping with Sonny unless I told him—maybe not even if I told him. What he can't fathom, what I can't explain, is Sonny caring about me. In Frank's mind, Sonny's a bad guy and that's that. I don't know how to make him understand. I don't think I can." And when Roger started to respond, Vinnie cut in, "C'm'on, I need some cigarettes." He got his jacket out of the closet, put it on.

Vince didn't want to go back to the apartment after he got his cigarettes. Instead, he detoured them to a picnic table in the park. Roger waited until he'd lit his second cigarette before asking, "So what?"

Vince frowned at him. "What?

"So what if you can't make Frank understand why you're with Steelgrave? What difference does it make?"

Vinnie sat staring at the smoke drifting from his cigarette, and at first Roger didn't think he was going to say anything. Then, "You talked to Aiuppo. What did you promise him?"

"I didn't promise him anything," Roger said, not enjoying being put on the defensive.

"Don't play semantical games with me, Spanky. You made some kind'a deal with him or you wouldn't be here. I bet it goes something like, you check out the situation, and if you don't like the looks of things, you'd take me outta here. That about it?"

Roger grabbed the pack of cigarettes off the picnic table and had shaken one out before remembering he hadn't had a cigarette in fifteen years and no longer carried a lighter. But Vince was holding his out, watching Roger as he waited for an answer.

"Yeah," Roger admitted, lighting up. "That's about it."

"And you'd do it no matter what, right?" Vinnie's smile was strangely self-satisfied.

Roger didn't bother denying it.

"You think Frank would do any less?"

"You know he wouldn't."

"I do know he wouldn't," Vince agreed. "Problem is, there's a difference between the way you look at things and the way Frank looks at things. Have you ever talked to Frank about Sonny?"

Roger didn't answer. You couldn't really call it talking with Frank, since what it was was Frank ranting around the subject, going on about Vince's post-Stemkowski meltdown as if he was incapable of seeing the connection. "What do you care what Frank thinks? He's not your father—"

He'd been going to say more, but Vince had jumped off the picnic table and was stalking away, anger showing in the tight set of his shoulders, and in the way his hands became fists. Before Roger could follow, he'd turned and walked back, come to stand staring down at Roger. "I want people to stop the fuck telling me how I'm supposed to feel about who!" he growled. "This isn't some neurotic fixation, it's a purely practical concern." He climbed back onto the picnic table, lit another cigarette, and after a few calming puffs said, "You said I should call Frank. You think a phone call would be enough?"

"No." Being on the defensive was pissing Roger off.

"How about this? You tell him you've seen me. You could vouch for my well-being, right? Without saying anything more, without having to go into details?" Vinnie didn't voice the rest of the question: Could he do that without having Frank on his back from that moment forward? And of course the answer was no.

"Yeah, OK, you're right. You can't just tell Frank to go jump in the lake. Not unless you're going to have Steelgrave supply the cement to help him stay there." Vinnie laughed at that. "So why don't you just tell him?"

"Tell him what?"

"Why Steelgrave."

Vince laughed, offered him another cigarette before lighting his own. "Frank always thought I was just about to ditch the OCB for Sonny. He's not real rational on the subject."

 _And you are?_ Roger didn't need to say it, Vince saw it in his face and responded defensively. "It was Rudy that called him."

"Because you were asking for him."

"Yeah."

"So why Steelgrave?"

Vince let the burning cigarette fall to the ground, put his hands over his eyes. "Because they were doing it, Rog. They were—I could hear it, and—I could smell it. Nobody did anything to me, except beat the hell out of me to get me to cooperate, but they didn't **want** anything from me, they weren't putting cigarettes out on my feet or any'a that shit—that's why I wonder if there was more to it than anybody wants to say."

"What are you talking about?" Roger asked, and Vinnie's hands dropped to his sides, his wet eyes met Roger's. Roger hadn't realized he'd been crying.

"Do we even know if we know all the players? It seems like every case I ever got, I'd start out thinking I was tackling the problem, only to find out it was bigger, more complicated, more guys in shadows pulling strings—even with Mel. Mel was big, but bigger'n the government of the United States? They tried to crucify you, then they came after me—and who knows who else might've had a stake in Isle Pavot? That's what scares me. Masters'd still like my balls for that one, and I don't know that he's the only one. I do know our government's in bed with the guys who grabbed me."

"What **did** happen?" Roger asked, trying to shift the conversation away from what sounded like paranoia on Vince's part. The bad thing was, it wasn't at all.

"They grabbed me and took me with 'em, stuck me in a cell by myself 'til I lost my mind. I tried praying, but I could hear those other poor guys praying, and God sure wasn't coming through for any of them, and they were in a lot worse shape than I was. I knew what was happening to them, I could smell it. Once you've smelled that electric smell—"

_Steelgrave, Stemkowski—for that matter, Frank got a few volts, back in the day, or at least that's what Vince told me, and why would he lie? Yeah, Vince would know that smell._

"—the burning skin, you never forget it. Guess that's why Sonny. Besides thinking I was gonna die and I wanted to make my peace—"

"Again," Roger couldn't keep himself from interrupting.

"Yeah. Again. Only this time I didn't wanna get rid of him, I wanted him to stick around so I wouldn't be alone when they . . . . And one thing about Sonny, when I was with him, he didn't want me any different. If I was looking for a dead guy to spend time with, Sonny was either gonna love me or hate me, but he wasn't gonna hold up a bar too high for me to jump over."

"And you were pissed off." Roger looked at him closely. "You're still pissed, at me, at Frank, for not coming to rescue you."

Vince looked away, but he didn't refute Roger's words. "I knew you'd be hunting for me, but after a while I started wondering if you'd all just gone on with your lives—I even wondered if it hadn't been staged by the OCB, to get rid of me, no muss, no fuss. I know it's crazy. But everything was so scary, so complicated, and Sonny was so easy."

"Imaginary playmates are like that," Roger agreed. When Vince didn't rise to the bait, he added, "Is he as easy now that he's a living, breathing person?"

Vinnie laughed. "Are you kidding me?" He tapped out another cigarette but instead of lighting it, Vince just held it, turning it over in his hands, looking at it. "We're not talking long walks on the beach, or a perfect, unspoken communion of souls, but we get by."

"What **are** we talking about?" Roger asked.

"I guess you'd call it La Familia's own version of WitSec. I can't safely be Vinnie Terranova anymore—"

"So you're Steelgrave's—what? Longtime companion?"

Vinnie shook his head. "I don't know. It's not that simple."

"How complicated can it be?" Roger asked.

"Well, when you factor in the stewardesses Sonny brings home—" Vince shrugged. "Sometimes it's like I'm back working for him again, and sometimes it's like there's more, and sometimes— Did you ever see that movie, _The Defiant Ones?_ Sometimes it's like that, like we're stuck with each other and can't escape." He shrugged again. "Mostly we have a good time."

"You drinking again?"

"Once in a while. Nothing I can't handle."

 _And now, the sixty-four thousand dollar question._ "Is this where you want to be?"

"Yeah, I guess. It's not like there's anything to go back to. The OCB doesn't want me—Paul made that real clear last time we spoke. My mother . . . ." Vinnie flipped away the unlit cigarette he'd been playing with and took out another, lighting this one.

"You're a big boy. You should be able to get along without Mama."

Vince gave him a grim smile. "I am. She's got what she wants and I got what I want."

"You're still pissed at her for marrying Aiuppo."

"Nah, Rog, I'm finally pissed at her for calling me a fool for caring about Sonny, for having standards that apply only to me."

Roger waited a few minutes before asking, "So you're here out of spite?"

"No! I'm here because it's the only place I really do belong now."

"And this is your life's calling? You've traded in saving the world for navel-gazing in a fancy penthouse with a great view?"

For just a second there was anger—righteous indignation—in Vince's eyes. Then it was gone, swallowed by something Roger couldn't identify. "I still keep my hand in. Every Halloween I go trick-or-treating for UNICEF." The remains of the latest cigarette went flying through the air after the others. "I've never asked you to account for your days and I'm not defending my choices to you."

"Fair enough," Roger agreed. On that playing field, he didn't stand a chance of winning. "What time's Steelgrave get home? Where is he, anyway?"

"Got an office. He used to use the spare bedroom, but too much time together got unpleasant."

"What's he do there?"

"Mostly I think he gets away from me. Why?"

"I thought I'd stay for dinner." He expected this idea to be met with resistance, but Vinnie surprised him.

"You want to meet Sonny?" He seemed to be considering it, as if there were attractions to this idea Roger couldn't see. "Sure, why not?"

But it was a bluff, and not one Roger felt like calling. He wasn't here to make Vince's life more complicated. He could get what he needed from Steelgrave without either of them ever knowing.

"Maybe next time."

Vinnie smiled at him, looking a little relieved. "You want to go back, get your suitcase?" He got off the picnic table, stood waiting for Roger to join him.

Roger shook his head. "It's yours. I found the money you left behind. You got a safe place to stash it?"

"Sure, I told you—trick or treat for UNICEF. A donation like that, I'll probably get another pin on my lapel."

Roger watched him walk away, wondering if he'd really do it.


End file.
